Life’s a beach: Russian tourists rescued after being blown 1.5km out to sea by strong winds while relaxing on inflatable mattress

A relaxing beach holiday near the Russian coastal resort of Anapa turned into a nightmare for two tourists, who made waves with the local rescue services after they were swept far out into the Black Sea on an inflatable pool toy.

On Saturday, authorities in the south coast city issued a statement saying they had picked up the young pair after they were spotted drifting out in open waters. According to them, strong gusts had blown them around 1.5km from the beach.

“Thanks to the timely and professional assistance of rescuers, their ‘swim’ ended safely,” the officials said. In a picture snapped by emergency services, a young woman can be seen sitting aboard a dinghy, holding the partially deflated remains of the inflatable mattress she and her companion had been riding.

This isn’t the first time that strong currents have posed a risk to beachgoing paddlers. In 2018, Scottish police issued a warning after being forced to save a young girl who was blown out to sea in Ayrshire while riding an inflatable unicorn. Her father had swum out to try to rescue her, but the pair had become stranded.

Kevin Paterson, the head of the local coastguard, said at the time that “these inflatables should only be used in swimming pools where there’s no risk of being blown out to sea and there’s lifeguards on duty.”

Anapa is known as a popular holiday destination for Russian tourists, with an increasing number of sun-worshipers forced to take breaks at home given that the Covid-19 pandemic has closed many foreign destinations. While countries like Turkey have opened to tourists from the country, EU destinations are currently effectively off-limits due to quarantine requirements.

Last week, Brussels’ envoy in Moscow said that talks had been proposed to allow mutual acceptance of vaccine certificates in a bid to restart international travel. However, a row quickly broke out after France’s Foreign Minister Clément Beaune urged officials to prevent those immunized with the Russian-made Sputnik V jab from being able to cross borders without tough requirements.

Responding to the statement, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova branded the remarks “a hybrid of racism, imperial hegemony, and neo-Nazism.” She claimed that “entire peoples are denied equal rights and opportunities, contrary to laws, ethics, and morality, pushing the world to confrontation at a time when it is being severely tested by the pandemic.”

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